Bangladesh University of Professionals

Term Paper: 01
Course name: Presentation Skill Development
Course code: BUS7101

Submitted to:
Maj Gen AKM Abdullahil Baquee (Retd)
Faculty Member, Presentation Skill Development

Submitted by:
A K M Sawkat Ullah Sameo
ID 2123033001
Batch 28, Section A, MBA Professional

Topic:
Traditions of Communication
Date:
23 November 2021
 Letter of Transmittal

23 November 2021

Maj Gen AKM Abdullahil Baquee (Retd)

Faculty Member
Presentation Skill Development
Bangladesh University of Professionals

Subject: Submission of Term Paper.

Respected Sir,

Good day to you. I, Sqn Ldr A K M Sawkat Ullah Sameo hope that you are doing fine and
staying safe in this pandemic situation by the grace of Almighty Allah. I would like to
cordially present you my very first term paper on “Traditions of Communications”. I have
based this paper on the documents you provided, some research online and found the topic
to be really interesting and informative.

I would like to thank you for providing our class with the opportunity to work on this paper.
This paper helped us to learn about the communication skills as a whole and also polished
our learnings on what we attained through your lectures. I hope that you will consider this
paper useful.

Yours Sincerely

Squadron Leader A K M Sawkat Ullah Sameo

Student ID: 2123033001
Batch – 28, Section – A,
MBA Professionals Program.

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 Acknowledgement

At first, I would like to thank Almighty Allah for giving me ability and opportunity for
successfully carrying out the assignment on time.

I am grateful to our respectable Faculty Member Maj Gen AKM Abdullahil Baquee (Retd),
Bangladesh University of Professionals, for allowing me to do such interesting and
knowledgeable work. Without his proper and precise instruction, this paper would not be
in its current form by this time.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank my parents, spouse and all the friends who have
always stood by and supported us both morally and practically.

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 Executive Summary

The main objective of this paper is the Traditions of Communications. I should be studying
on the method of communication out of the various traditions, which is best for the
presentation skill in business scenario.

Throughout this study it has been tried to understand how the traditions of communication
came into being and how different methods are useful for different purposes. In
investigating these questions, a definite analysis has been conducted in my opinion.

Out of Robert Craig’s 07 Traditions of Communication, I think the Cybernetic tradition is

best suited for business communication in today’s standard. The results of the research
came to this way because all of business presentation is goal oriented. The presenter sets a
goal and then modulates his presentation centering the goal objective. That is the exact
thing that cybernetic tradition of communication stands for.

Different business leaders may follow his/her different styles but end of the day it always
comes down to the business goal. Thus, no other traditions of communication can be as
useful as the cybernetic one.

The study concludes that Cybernetic Tradition of communication is preferred due to focus
on goal or objective and thus best suited to send the correct message to the recipient.
However, it has disadvantages of misunderstood responses as what the sender intends to
send may not be correctly received by the recipient.

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 Table of Contents

Acknowledgement .......................................................................................................................... ii
Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................... iii
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1
Objectives ....................................................................................................................................... 1
What is Communication Theory .................................................................................................. 2
Traditions of Communication Theory ......................................................................................... 3
Rhetorical Tradition ...................................................................................................................... 4
Semiotic Tradition ......................................................................................................................... 5
Phenomenological Tradition ......................................................................................................... 6
Sociopsychological Tradition ........................................................................................................ 7
Sociocultural Tradition ................................................................................................................. 8
Critical Tradition ........................................................................................................................... 9
Cybernetic Tradition ................................................................................................................... 10
Why Cybernetic Tradition? ........................................................................................................ 11
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 11
References ..................................................................................................................................... 11

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Introduction
MBA students like me frequently approach librarians seeking a source that will provide a
summary of a particular theory or tradition which is the most beneficial for business
communication.

I’m hoping that my paper will provide a one stop source for those seeking the best tradition
of communication in a brief manner. It’ll summarize in one place the importance and
disadvantages of cybernetic tradition of communication in business arena. It’ll provide an
excellent starting place for new business students like me seeking information on the
subject mentioned topic covered.

Furthermore, readers of this paper will get a sense of other traditions of communication
and how cybernetic tradition pulls ahead than others when it comes to business
communication in modern corporate setting.

Objectives
The objective of my paper is to find out the best tradition of communication for business
presentation, explain why it accelerates ahead of the other traditions when it comes to
business communication and also touch upon the disadvantages that it may possess.

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What is Communication Theory

Thinking about the word ‘theory’, we often think of a well-known theory, such as the
theory of relativity. If nothing comes to mind, then we think of a guess. Neither of these
options gets us close to how communication theory is envisioned, defined, and employed.
For the purpose of this paper, I’ll think of a theory as a set of systematic, informed hunches,
about the way things work. Each part of this definition is important.

First, the reference to a set of hunches gets us away from thinking about theory as a guess.

Second, the word informed signals that academics who engage in theory development have
spent many years reading articles and books, talking to experts in their research area, and
presenting ideas at academic conferences and getting feedback on those ideas before they
would ever think about adding the word theory to their work.

Finally, the word systematic refers to the progressive and integrated nature of theory
development. A theory doesn’t emerge from one or two concepts or variables. Theories
develop as a conceptual framework is scaffolded around concepts, ideas, and the
relationship among them.

Thus, we can conclude that, communication theory isn’t a guess. Instead, it’s a framework
or lens that helps systematically guide our thinking about communication.

Fig-1: Artist’s Depiction of Communication between Humans.

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Traditions of Communication Theory

Communication studies is a broad, diverse, and interdisciplinary field. Because of this,

communication studies have had an identity crisis as scholars within our field have tried to
articulate where we fit within the structure of academia and academic thought, how we
have adopted and expanded from other disciplines, and how we have our own unique
history and organic contributions to theory and research that should be acknowledged.

Communication Theorist and Editor from University of Colorado, Robert T. Craig

identified seven traditions of communication theory in 1999 namely: Rhetorical, Semiotic,
Phenomenological, Critical, Sociopsychological, Sociocultural and Cybernetic.

Fig-2: Seven Traditions of Communication Theory.

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Rhetorical Tradition

Rhetoric (study of principles and rules of composition formulated by ancient critics and of
writing or speaking as a means of communication or persuasion) has a long history
traceable to Greek sophists (c. 600 BCE), as we know is when the most of the important
steps and important suggestions on the way how to structure your public speech were
developed.

When it comes to public presentations, this is Rhetorical Tradition. It's all about rhetoric,
and the way how we can influence through verbal and nonverbal communication.

Fig-3: Rhetorical Tradition.

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Semiotic Tradition

John Locke’s language theory, explicated in An Essay on Human Understanding, published

in 1690, is credited with setting off semiotics as a distinct tradition of communication
theory. Pragmaticism and linguistics, reflected in the current theories of language,
discourse, interpretation, nonverbal communication, culture and media are contemporary
areas of study that rely on the semiotic tradition.

Semiotics defines communication as intersubjective mediation by signs. In semiotics, a

sign is anything that can stand in for something else. Semioticians (scholars who work in
the semiotic tradition) may focus on images or words and what they symbolize.

Fig-4: Semiotic Tradition.

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Phenomenological Tradition

Phenomenology is the study of consciousness from first-person perspective. It views

communication as dialogue or experience of otherness. Martin Buber explicates that
dialogue is based on the experience of authentic, direct and unmediated contact with others.
The description of the phenomenon of consciousness is the objective of phenomenology as
evident in the three main categories of phenomenological thinking – essentialist (Edmund
Husserl), Ontological (Martin Heidegger) and Existentialist (Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice
Merleau-Pontry).

So, in brief, the phenomenological tradition focuses on how people connect, or not, as they
go about their everyday lives and acknowledge and understand, or not, each other’s
experiences and standpoints.

Fig-5: Phenomenological Tradition.

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Sociopsychological Tradition

Socio-psychological tradition sees communication as interpersonal interaction. It lies under

this umbrella of behavioral approach, focusing on stimuli and reaction. So here, we speak
about cause-and-effect relationships within the communicative process. It's all about
expression, interaction, and influence. It originates in psychology and sociology; it tends
to be quite objective.

Most of communication science falls into this tradition, as exemplified by the experimental
persuasion studies of Carl Hovland, as well as the voting studies of Paul Lazarsfeld and
Bernard Berelson. This tradition acknowledges that humans are complex and that our
communication is caused or at least influenced by conscious and subconscious processes,
such as our personalities, emotional states, attitudes, and values.

Fig-6: Sociopsychological Tradition.

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Sociocultural Tradition

This tradition, which owes its intellectual inheritance to sociology and anthropology,
theorizes communication as a symbolic process that produces and reproduces shared
sociocultural patterns. Although this tradition views the existing sociocultural order as
largely a reproduction of our everyday interactions, it also recognized the creative process
that adds to those interactions.

Two poles have emerged within this tradition: structural theories that explicate relative
stability of macrolevel patterns and interactionist-interpretive theories that explicate
microlevel patterns of social-order creation. Socio-cultural research can also draw from
and connect to other traditions, such as the phenomenological or semiotic tradition.

Fig-7: Sociocultural Tradition.

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Critical Tradition

Although this tradition has ancient historical roots, the modern Wewstern tradtion of
critical social theory is claimed to run from Karl Marx through the Frankfurt School to
Jürgen Habermas. The critical tradition and the critical paradigm are the most recent to
emerge in communication studies.

As feminist theory, critical race theory, and queer theory developed in the wake of these
social movements, some communication scholars adopted a critical perspective to examine
the ways in which communication perpetuates and resists dominant ideologies. Language
and ideology are two main focuses of the critical tradition, as scholars believe that the
group who controls the language can actually be dominant within the given society.

Fig-8: Critical Tradition.

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Cybernetic Tradition

Modern communication theory emerged with the cybernetic tradition in the mid-20th
century featuring the works of scholars like Claude Shannon, Norbert Wiener, John von
Neumann and Alan Turing. This tradition includes current theories as diverse as systems
and information science, cognitive science and artificial intelligence, functionalist social
theory, network analysis and the Batesonian school of interpersonal communication.

Cybernetic tradition is communication as a sort of information process. So here, we focus

on the system, at individuals or organizations and the channels which are used in order to
transmit the message. Communication within this tradition is always goal-oriented. And
the sender has an initial goal before he creates the message and utilizes particular
communication channel to transmit it or send it.

As we dive deep in communication models and process, we will find that this view of
communication aligns with the transmission model of communication in which a sender
encodes a message, transmits it through a channel (the spoken word, for example) that is
then decoded by the receiver. After the decoding process happens, more communication
can be sent as feedback. This tradition of communication theory has been applied to the
communication that takes place with family systems and friendship networks.

Fig-9: Brief History of Cybernetic Tradition of Communication.

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Why Cybernetic Tradition?

Time is the most valuable commodity in 21st century and transparent communication is
new generation’s favorite. Business leaders and delegates are performing multi tasks and
keeping their meetings and communication efficient without wasting time. Thus, a
preplanned homework is mandatory before setting up our business presentation. Nothing
beats cybernetic tradition in that regard as this tradition is primarily goal oriented.

As a result, communication is most effective and efficient. The only drawback in my

opinion is the fact that, the receiver may receive and decode the original message
differently than what the sender intended to as miscommunication can occur due to noise,
distraction, or information overload. But, just a clarification or feedback between the two
parties will fix any misunderstanding, if there is any.

Conclusion
As every human differ from one another, favorite communication theories will also differ
between every human being. I’ve come to the conclusion that my generation and modern
businesses will favor cybernetic communication to other traditions. The success of my
business communication will reflect on the success of my business and only from that, I
can come to the conclusion if my choice of communication is turning out to be fruitful.

Depending on time and other factors, these communication traditions maybe adjusted from
time to time to suit the business model the best.

References

• Robert Craig's Seven Traditions of Communication Theory

• Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Volume 1; edited by Stephen W. Littlejohn,
Karen A. Foss
• Our Communication, Our World; An Introduction to Communication Studies v1.0
Richard G. Jones Jr.

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